


Feelings into words

by Tabata



Series: Leoverse [270]
Category: Glee
Genre: Autism, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23202133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabata/pseuds/Tabata
Summary: The day the lawyer calls him to tell him his two best friends have died and made him the legal guardian of their only autistic son, Blaine thinks he can't do it.
Series: Leoverse [270]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/30541
Kudos: 1





	Feelings into words

**Author's Note:**

> **WARNING:** This story is an **AU** from the original 'verse. What happens in here has little to none correlation with what happens in Leonard Karofsky-Hummel VS The world or Broken Heart Syndrome. The characters involved are (mostly) the same, but situations and relationships between them may be completely different.  
> In this particular instance of the universe, Blaine's life is turned upside down after Kurt and Dave die in a car's accident, leaving him the only guardian of their son Leo, who's on the spectrum.
> 
> written for: COW-T #10  
> prompt: Alexithymia

The day the lawyer calls him to tell him his two best friends have died and made him the legal guardian of their only autistic son, Blaine thinks he can't do it. He's not good with kids, let alone those with special needs.

His life is unsuitable for a teenager: he's never home, he doesn't cook and he has no moral himself. How he is supposed to teach anything to another human being? Even his house – A 150 square meter one bedroom loft – is not fit for the task.

He wants to say no, but he ends up accepting the responsibility because he can't stand the idea of disappointing Kurt and Dave by dropping their kid back into the system and washing his hands of him.

It's not easy at first – and it doesn't get easier later – because Leo has habits that can't be broken and routines that must be followed, otherwise he gets upset and he's very hard to comfort when he is.

Blaine hates routines. He hates to do the same thing in the same way over and over. He's so used to wake up in the morning and do whatever he fancies at the moment that the mere idea of going to the same place or doing the same thing twice in a row is appalling.

The first few weeks are a nightmare. Leo only wants to do things his way and Blaine has to let him and also adapt to do things the way Leo wants him to. Timetables must be respected down to the second and every promise must be kept. Leo gets easily disappointed and disappointment leads to him throwing very pricey things around.

And yet, learning Leo's routines is what saves Blaine.

Once he gets the hang of it– how Leo likes to do things and how he does not – Blaine understands how to get the kid's collaboration. After learning Leo's routines, he gives him more to ease their daily life, as Leo responds to them better than anything else. Repetition makes Leo comfortable, timetables give him a precise pace to follow. He lacks the social landmarks everybody else has, so that is what Blaine has to give him. 

Slipping into a new life entirely is not easy for either of them. Blaine lacks the will to take care of another person entirely. He hates to have to explain everything to him, even the simplest things. And Leo gets annoyed when Blaine doesn't instantly get what he needs or wants. He gets agitated, he screams or he starts lulling himself in a corner, which creeps Blaine out before it worries him.

But then, at some point, Blaine is not sure how, everything falls into place. 

Blaine wakes up every morning knowing that he has to set the table with a blue or a white mug, that all the cereals needs to be on the left while the cakes goes on the right, and it's not a nuisance anymore. It's just Leo. And Leo learns that he needs to wait for Blaine to be up before he can start roaming the house or play videogames in the morning like he likes to do.

After a couple of months everything works – sort of – except one thing, for which Blaine hasn't found a perfect solution yet. The hardest part of dealing with Leo's autism is and has always been his inability to express his feelings. 

His reactions to what happens to him are never random – at the beginning Blaine thought they were, but he was wrong – but they are always very intense and rarely specific, so that it's really hard sometimes to respond to them in the proper way or even just to contain them.

Frustration, anger and sometimes sadness, all trigger the same reaction in Leo. He starts speaking quicker, more and more anxiously, until he just explodes into screams or physical violence – often times towards himself, but sometimes towards Blaine too. 

Not only he doesn't have words for what he feels – Blaine is slowly teaching them to him, but they are only half the problem – he just can't deal with the feelings he has because they are outside of his control and that irritates him. And since he's got only one outlet for a wide range of sensations, that's the only one he uses, which makes it difficult to understand him. Sometimes he screams because he can't do something and Blaine thinks he's being sad and comforts him, which makes Leo even more agitated.

Happiness is not really easier. Leo smiles rarely and not always in direct response to something that made him happy. More often then not, his happy reaction is no reaction at all. It's not exactly apathy – even if he goes there too – but more like an absence of response. It's calm, in a way. At least Blaine knows that, if he's not screaming or throwing things, it's possible that he is at least content.

It's a bit frustrating to give him a gift and receive only a simple, seemingly uninterested nod. The only way Blaine knows when Leo likes something he gave him it's because Leo always carries it around or gives it a special place in his room.

Despite everything, though, Blaine can imagine what the kid is feeling right now, as they get inside the house after visiting his parents' grave. It was the first time they went to the cemetery and Leo just stood there in front of the grave, staring at the marble stone for twenty minutes straight. Then, suddenly, he turned around and said, "I'm done. We can go," and he marched back towards the car, forcing Blaine to quickly say goodbye to his best friends and run after him.

"We can talk if you want," Blaine ventures as they both sit on the couch.

Leo's face is completely blank – like a mask – but Blaine is so used to it by now that it doesn't feel like it would be harder than usual to get through to him. "I don't need to," Leo turns to him, but he looks somewhere at Blaine's left, never really looking him in the eye. "I'm not sad."

"Are you sure?"

Leo seems to think about it, his eyes darting left and right quickly. He rolls his head a little and lets out the smallest of moans. He doesn't say anything, just rest his forehead – no other part of his body – against Blaine's shoulder, touching him for the very first time since he got here.

Blaine doesn't need a clearer answer than that.


End file.
